Is there the ability and the will to change EU law?

I'm aware that directives in EU law are passed by the European Commission (EC).

Directives are not passed by the Commission. They are proposed by the Commission, but they don't become law until approved the the Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

What happens when an EU directive causes unnecessary inconvenience?

Ideally this would be spotted in the policy formation process, before the Directive is proposed, so the draft Directive would be modified to avoid the inconvenience. But, of course, no process is perfect. Or, a Directive which works well initially might start to be problematic because the context in which it operates changes.

Can the EC change the law if it wants to?

No. It can only propose changes, which the Parliament and the Council may or may not approve. The process is the same as the process by which the Directive was adopted in the first place.

If it can, do the members of the EC have the will to do so?

I think this question should refer to the Members of the Council of Ministers, since they are the most significant decision-makers. Obviously, they may or may not wish to make the change. In general, they will want to avoid unnecessary inconvenience — who wouldn't? — but they may not agree that the inconvenience is unnecessary, or they may not feel that the proposed change is the best way of avoiding it.

For example, what if an EU directive has an effect that is a violation of the rights cited in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)? By the way, I know that the ECHR is not an EU convention.

Although the EU isn't itself a party to the ECHR, all the Member States are parties (and are required by EU law to be parties), and the Treaty of Lisbon does require EU law to be consistent with the Convention. So a conflict between the requirements of a Directive and the obligations of the Convention would be a big problem. There would certainly be political will to resolve the conflict, most likely by modifying the Directive.

Another example is the EU's ban on chlorinated chicken, which I think is a trade barrier that was created on the pretext of health concerns. Surely, the EC's attitude to US food production is prejudiced, isn't it? The idea that letting the sale of that type of chicken in the EU would cause European producers of food to become careless about food safety is theoretical . . .

(Being pedantic, the ban on chlorine-washed food is not imposed by a European Directiv but by a European Regulation. The process for making these is similar to the process for making regulations, though.)

You may think it was a "trade barrier created on the pretext of health concerns", but most likely that's because you haven't read very much about the adoption of the ban or the reasons for it. Your opinion is not widely held and so I don't think a modification to the relevant Regulation to reverse the ban is likely to be proposed.

- and people wonder why Brexit took place!

A double-edged comment, if ever I saw one. If the ban on chlorinated chicken motivated people who share your views to pursue Brexit, this simply confirms the stereotype that the Brexit was fuelled by ignorance and shallow thinking. That's probably not what you were trying to say, though.

But in fact this wasn't a driver of Brexit, a conclusion we can draw from the fact that, although the UK has left the EU and is free to set its own product standards, it maintains a ban on the sale of chlorine-washed food for human consumption and so far as I know no UK political party — not even Reform — advocates any change to this position.

(The Commission did at one stage float the idea of relaxing the ban to permit the import of chlorinated chicken from the US, provided it was labelled to show that it had been chlorinated. There was strong criticism from Member States, not least from the UK — this was some years before Brexit — and also from advocacy groups concerned with consumer safety, environmental standards and animal welfare. It was clear that such a modification would not be acceptable to the Parliament and the idea went no further.)

Firstly, there's no ban on burning peat, except in cities and that applies to a lot of solid fuels. There's no ban on cutting it either. The ban is only on selling it. The main reason for the turf cutting ban is to stop the irreversible damage to Irish bogs.

Better to be devastating someone else's ecology than our own.

if we start slipping and allow ourselves to import food from America, especially animal products, I am absolutely switching to vegetarian diet end of story.

I’d rather eat lettuce forever than eat chicken, beef or pork from the states.

I know it’s not that’s why I am so confident in announcing that. 😂

You’d want to be gone mad to import that rubbish. Not sure what’s wrong with our own livestock and those near to us when required (Poland for chicken etc)

The theory behind accepting meat from outside the EU is that it brings prices down for Joe Public. In 2024 we launched a trade deal with South American states but despite beef being included the price of beef in the shops hasn't changed much

In the United States nearly all food stuff is more expensive than it is here so I don't see any potential trade deal as having a major impact